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Comment by siranachronist | Hacker News Reader

https://github.com/pkolaczk/fclones can do the same thing, and it's perfectly free and open source. terminal based though

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Hyperspace said I can save 10GB.

But then I ran this command and saved over 20GB:

  brew install fclones
  cd ~
  fclones group . | fclones dedupe

I've used fclones before in the default mode (create hard links) but this is the first time I've run it at the top level of my home folder, in dedupe mode (i.e. using APFS clones). Fingers crossed it didn't wreck anything.

[I was wrong, see below.—cw] It doesn't do the same thing. An APFS clone/copy-on-write clone is not the same as a hard or soft link. https://eclecticlight.co/2019/01/05/aliases-hard-links-symli...

Your source points out that:

< You can also create [APFS (copy on write) clones] in Terminal using the command `cp -c oldfilename newfilename` where the c option requires cloning rather than a regular copy.

`fclones dedupe` uses the same command[1]:

  if cfg!(target_os = "macos") {
      result.push(format!("cp -c {target} {link}"));

[1] https://github.com/pkolaczk/fclones/blob/555cde08fde4e700b25...

I stand corrected, thank you!

  brew install fclones

Thanks for the recommendation! Just installed it via homebrew.

Nice, also compression at file system level can save a lot of space and with current CPU speeds is completely transparent. It is feature from HFS+ that is still works in APFS, but is not officially supported anymore, what is wrong with you Apple ?

This tool to enable compression is free and open source

https://github.com/RJVB/afsctool

Also note about APFS vs HFS+, if you use HDD e.g. as backup media for Time Machine, HFS+ is must have over APFS as it is optimised only for SSD (random access).

https://bombich.com/blog/2019/09/12/analysis-apfs-enumeratio...

https://larryjordan.com/blog/apfs-is-not-yet-ready-for-tradi...

Not so smart Time Machine setup utility forcefully re-creates APFS on a HDD media, so you have to manually create HFS+ volume (e.g. with Disk Utily) and then use terminal command to add this volume as TM destination

`sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/TM07T`

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